Psychic Vampire

A Psychic Vampire is a person[1] or being[2] who feeds off the "life force" of other living creatures.[1] Psychic vampires are represented in the occult beliefs of various cultures and in fiction.[3] There is no scientific or medical evidence supporting the existence of psychic vampires, or even the bodily or psychic energy they allegedly drain.[4]

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Alternate Terms

The term psychic vampire is sometimes abbreviated psy-vamp (or psi-vamp). Alternate terms for these entities include energy vampire, energy predator, energy parasite, energy eater and energivore, as well as psionic vampire, pranic vampire, and empathic vampire.

Terms used to describe the substance or essence that psychic vampires take or receive from others include: energy,[1]qi (or ch'i), life force, prana,[1] and vitality.

Emotional Vampires

American author Albert Bernstein uses the phrase "emotional vampire" for people with various personality disorders who are often considered to drain emotional energy from others.[5][6][7]

Energy Vampires

The term "energy vampire" is also used metaphorically to refer to people whose influence leaves a person feeling exhausted, unfocused, and depressed, without ascribing the phenomenon to psychic interference. [8][9]

Dion Fortune wrote of psychic parasitism in relation to vampirism as early as 1930 in her book, Psychic Self-Defense.[10][11] Fortune considered psychic vampirism a combination of psychic and psychological pathology, and distinguished between what she considered to be true psychic vampirism and mental conditions that produce similar symptoms. For the latter, she named folie à deux and similar phenomena.

The term "psychic vampire" was popularized in the 1960s by Anton LaVey and his Church of Satan. LaVey wrote on the topic in his book, The Satanic Bible, and claimed to have coined the term.[2] LaVey used psychic vampire to mean a spiritually or emotionally weak person who drains vital energy from other people, or a paranormal entity within such a person, allowing the psychic draining of energy from other people. Adam Parfrey likewise attributed the term to LaVey in an introduction to The Devil's Notebook.[12]

The terms "energy vampire" and "psychic vampire" have been used as synonyms in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union as part of an occult revival.[13]

Role in Modern Vampire Subculture

The theme of the psychic vampire has been a focus within modern vampire subculture. The way that the subculture has manipulated the image of the psychic vampire has been investigated by researchers such as Mark Benecke[14] and A. Asbjorn Jon.[15] Jon has noted that, like the traditional psychic vampires, those of vampire subculture believe that they 'prey upon life-force or 'pranic' energy'.[15]

Sexual Vampires

A related form of psychic vampirism is known as sexual vampirism, where one is said to be able to feed off sexual energy.[16]